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Accuser’s Fellow Guineans Express Bewilderment

Hundreds of Guinean men in bright robes and skullcaps knelt on the floor of a Bronx mosque on Friday as their imam boomed out a sermon that seemed tailored for a difficult day.

“Be truthful,” the imam, Abdourahmane Bah, told the worshipers. “Do not lie. Whenever you tell something, make sure you tell the truth.”

All across neighborhoods in the city where West Africans gather, people were discussing the unexpected news that prosecutors doubted the credibility of the hotel housekeeper from Guinea who had accused the French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault.

In African languages like Fulani and Twi, over cups of milky tea and at bodegas stocked with palm nuts, they traded theories about the unraveling of her case.

The Guineans speculated about what it might mean for their insular community. Many felt a sense of bewilderment that the case had taken such an unlikely turn and they doubted speculation that she might have been involved with drugs and money laundering.

Others felt under siege as reporters, and even fellow immigrants, pressed for answers to a puzzle that only grew knottier.

“It’s about the two of them,” said Mamadou Diallo, president of the Futa Islamic Center, the Guinean mosque not far from Yankee Stadium where others said the housekeeper attended prayers. “All we can do is stand still and watch.”

Mr. Diallo, weary from the scrutiny that the case has brought to his community, said he feared that if lawyers determine that the woman is unreliable, that judgment will reflect poorly on other Guineans in the city.

Photo

Passers-by outside the Futa Islamic Center, the Guinean mosque that the hotel housekeeper in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case reportedly attended.Credit
Marcus Yam for The New York Times

He said he did not know the woman personally, but he described the members of his mosque as earnest, religious people who have brought their rural African values to New York City. Even though they live in the Bronx, he said, “we are in a big village.”

Others worried that the collapse of such a high-profile case would affect other Africans in the city.

“It will be very hard to believe in the future what African people say,” said Nurudeen Sulayman, 46, a Nigerian imam at another mosque. “She has to repent if she’s lying.”

Those who knew the woman, even only casually, puzzled over past interactions, sifting for evidence to support or knock down descriptions of her as untruthful on television news reports.

The owner of an African restaurant said the woman used to come in every morning to buy a $6 beef sandwich for breakfast.

At night, she used to return and sell prepaid telephone cards to the dinner customers, the restaurant owner said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of offending community leaders. She stopped those sales when she got her job at the hotel, the owner said.

As for the accuser’s possible ties to drugs or crime, the owner shook her head. “I stay inside,” she said. “You don’t know what people do out.”

Many West Africans reflexively defended the woman, as if allegations against her smeared them all.

“We work hard, we don’t do drugs,” said Cecilia Opoko, 29, a native of Ghana. “We take care of our kids. We don’t do that stuff.”

Few people expressed conspiracy theories about Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s allies reaching into the New York courts. Fewer tried to predict what might happen next.

“This case is in very good hands,” Imam Bah assured the roomful of worshipers. “We don’t know anything yet. We are trying to learn.”

A version of this article appears in print on July 2, 2011, on page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Accuser’s Fellow Guineans Feel a Sense of Bewilderment. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe